Cheap phones are actually in the $60 price range.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Galaxy-Prevail-White-Mobile/dp...

http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lumia-640-Annual-Contract/dp/B01...

I thought those where locked/discounted phones.

First is: Boost (67.99), or Sprint prepaid (104$)

Second is: AT&T Go Phone only.

But, it looks like you can get a new unlocked smartphone for 60$. http://www.amazon.com/BLU-Advance-5-0-Unlocked-Smartphone/dp...

I got the Lumia 635 for $30 last year as a temporary replacement for my Nexus 5 that I walked into a lake on accident, and it's worked out so well I still have it with no plans to upgrade.

I've gotten cheap Android phones that have felt sluggish and super buggy after a mere 6 months (not the Nexus 5, though, that just had a crap battery life, but I also spent ~$450 on it, so it wasn't cheap), but this one still operates as slick and smooth as the day I bought it, with a battery that lasts a day and a half.

Anyone looking for a cheap phone, I highly recommend the Lumia 635 (640 is just as cheap, but it doesn't support LTE, supposedly).

It's a good deal, but I think it's subsided.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/mobile/phone/lumia635/offers?...

Amazon lists: $131.11 and Cricket has it for 20$. Still, as long as your not locked into a contract and can buy replacements at that cost it's not a problem.

PS: Windows does seem to beat Android on low end phones.

You're right, I did catch it on sale at Best Buy, marked down from $100 the week I just happened to be looking for the phone, but it seems like the Lumias often get marked down, and regardless I paid $140 for a HTC One V as my 'cheap phone' that turned awful after only six months.

My first smartphone was the first Samsung Galaxy S that cost me $200 with a two year contract. It lasted just over a year before the radio stopped functioning and it became unusable as a phone.

Then I replaced it with a Motorola something-or-other that cost me $140 with a two year contract. That one lasted just under a year before the SIM card reader stopped working, and it was good for emergency calls only.

I replaced that with a Nokia Lumia something-or-other that cost $90 with no contract. After three years, it still works to this day.

However, I did feel the need for a hardware upgrade, so in November I replaced it with a Microsoft Lumia 640 LTE, which cost me $40, again with no contract.

I've been very happy with the Lumias. The UI is very fluid and responsive, and it does everything I want it to do and then some. The build quality is also an order of magnitude better than a cheap Android phone, and the battery lasts longer. The only drawback is that there aren't a hell of a lot of third party apps. That's manageable because the ones I care about are available: Web browser, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Uber, Skype, Weather, maps, navigation, a PDF reader, Kindle, a Reddit client, an SSH terminal, emulators for retro game consoles, and a guitar tuner. It also comes with a fully functional mobile version of Microsoft Office, and OneNote was a game-changer for me. I can also enable Internet sharing, so if I'm somewhere with no wifi, I can enable a hotspot on my phone and connect from my laptop (things may be different now, but on my Android phones that was only possible by using a custom ROM, e.g. Cyanogenmod).

The developer experience for Windows Phone is also great. Visual Studio beats the pants off of Xcode, and C# is a much nicer language than both Objective-C and Java (though not quite as nice as Swift, I must say).

The only thing I miss from Android is a file browser. Apps are completely sandboxed and can only access their own files, which makes a general file browser impossible on Windows Phone. But I've been living without it for over 3 years now, so it's not that big of a deal.

Despite the low price, they really are quality phones. As long as Microsoft keeps it up, I intend to stick with the Lumia indefinitely.

I bought a prepaid Moto E for $39.99 and activated it on Ringplus (a Sprint MVNO that offers free data/text/minutes every month) as a backup phone.

If you're willing to order from places like AliExpress, try <$40 for low end Android phones (unlocked).

E.g. here's one that ships to the UK for $31.58: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Original-Blackview-BV2000S-Mo...

Gotta love regional pricing. I see Galaxy phone as $57, the Lumia is $44. That they are locked to a particular provider makes them not really any different than your average phone. They do have the advantage of not locking you into a 2+ year contract.

Nice find on the BLU though.